


Haunting me

by 2Elenora2



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Clairvoyant, Ghosts, Some are, They're all dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13979688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Elenora2/pseuds/2Elenora2
Summary: Eric Bittle decided to follow his life long dream of becoming a hotel owner. He bought a beautiful hotel for dirt cheap, no damage to the place, nothing needed fixing, its cheap price all because there were claims that the place was extremely haunted.Haunted? Eric had scoffed at that.Why? He's clairvoyant and deals with ghosts on a daily basis. And besides, all he'd have to do was help them move on and then his hotel business could get on track.But alas, things are never that easy.





	1. Prologue

Eric sat across from the real estate agent, who through the whole process was fidgety. She’d often flash a nervous smile when talking about the property in question. The tour of the place was even worse than this back-at-the-office interview, she was jumpy. Despite all this,  Eric remained enthusiastic throughout the whole thing. For as long as he could remember, he had always wanted to own a hotel. He’d always wanted to make a home away from home for all kinds of people.

“Eric,” The agent said chewing her lip. “There’s something I should disclose to you.”

Eric looked at her curiously, and deep down he knew what she was about to say.

“The hotel, well…” She chewed on her pen. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Ghosts?” Eric raised an eyebrow.

“Well, the hotel is said to be haunted. Numerous guests have complained about noises in the night, things going missing. They’ll get back late and someone will bump into them, and when they turn around there’s no one there. Bangs and clangs that come from nowhere.”

“In your own opinion, would you say it’s haunted?” Eric asked. 

“Truthfully? Yes. I, uh. When I was inspecting the property to put it up for sale I could swear there was a figure of a tall, dark haired man on the bottom of the grand staircase. When I went to ask the owner about it, I turned to point him out and he was gone. It was only a matter of seconds.”

“Huh.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?” She asked.

“Oh no hun, I do believe you.” Eric reached into his pocket and pulled out a card and handed it to the agent.

“Clairvoyant?” She queried. 

“I heard about the history of the hotel and well, I thought that maybe I could make a real business out of this place. Help those poor souls move on and allow me to make a fine hotel.” Eric grinned at the agent and began to sign his paperwork, making that place his own.

 

~*~

 

L’hotel Oak was a building with age, charm and history. All things that Eric Bittle, the new owner of the hotel, adored. For as long as the hotel had been a hotel, it had been given the name The Hotel Oak, as for many years it stood made from oak. Throughout the decades, previous owners had slowly replaced it with stone after a fire broke out in the kitchen and almost burnt the place to the ground.

He’d found the place listed in a newspaper, cheaper than what most houses were selling for in the area, the new owner so desperate to pass the place on that the price was so low that Eric was sure it was a scam.

A scam, no. Haunted, yes.

Eric could do haunted, after all, he was a clairvoyant.

For as long as he could remember he was always encountering ghosts. Wherever he went, they were there. Some were kind, others lost, few looking to harm and wreak havoc. A very vivid memory that stood out to him was the day that his grandfather died and appeared in his living room.

“Eric?” He’d asked, and Eric had promptly burst into tears with the knowledge that he’d past. Only being young and unaware of his clairvoyance, he ran to his mother and exclaimed that grandpa had died. His mother, concerned at this outburst, calmed him down and told him all was okay. An hour later, she held the phone to her ear sobbing as she was told the news.

The entry to the hotel was beautiful. Large wooden doors and a deck that stretched across the front were only a preview as to what could possibly be inside. When he first came to look at the place, this is what drew him in the most. He thought ‘ _If the outside could be this beautiful, there can only be better from here.’_ His best friend Lardo stood by his side, her mouth agape at the place in front of them.

“I can’t believe how cheap this place is!” She exclaimed.

“Well, apparently it’s haunted.” He shrugged. “Lots of entries on ghosts dot com. And the real estate agent didn’t seem all too keen on doing an inspection of the place either.”

“Did you feel anything? While you were in there?”

Bitty, as he was once told by another somewhat clairvoyant family member, was an empath. He had the ability not only to see and reach out to spirits, but in many cases could feel what they were feeling. The ability did not apply to living people as much, in that area he could tell how someone was feeling as easily as another.

“Not particularly.” He shrugged.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There was something there, but it was dull? It was like I was under water.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, lets get inside and find out just how haunted this place is.” He held his arm out, grinning. “Ready?”

 


	2. On this first day

The first day was hectic. It was full of paper work, meeting people important to the running of the hotel- or what was left of them. There were few cleaning staff, many of them had left when the previous owner had decided to sell. He’d met Gloria, an aging lady who decided to stay because she’d have no where else to go, and she had said to Eric in all honesty that “those ghosts were more afraid of her than she was of them,” and had branded a sage smudge stick. Eric had laughed and told her that she was on the right track.

He met up with the hotel manager, an eccentric man with long hair and a moustache. As soon as he saw Eric, he drew him in for a tight hug. Eric had little time to even resist.

“Nice to meet you!” The man said with a wide grin.

“Uh, nice to meet you…?”

“Oh, right, Shitty.”

“S-Shitty?” Eric raised a single eyebrow.

“Long story, brah.” Eric was now assuming that this man was all smiles. “Now listen, I’m both the manager and the lawyer so like, 90% of anything that goes on here can come to me while the rest, like bodily fluids, go to Gloria.”

“Remind me to give her a pay rise then.” Eric laughed, but Shitty just grimaced.

“Alright, follow me past the check-in desk and through this door you’ll find the office.” Shitty pushed the door open and ushered Eric in. “You’ll generally find me in here. Take a seat, we have some things to talk about.”

The room wasn’t all that big, there was a desk in the middle and a filing cabinet in the back corner. There was a small armchair in the other corner and that was all, nothing else would fit and Eric was sure that by having both himself and Shitty in the room would cause the room to burst at the seams. Eric sat down opposite Shitty.

“Now, you do realise that you are the sixth person to have bought this place in the past three years, right?” Shitty had folded his hands on the desk, and if he hadn’t told Eric earlier that he was a lawyer he certainly would’ve figured it out. Eric nodded. “Now, well. This meeting I usually have with new owners is enough to frighten them. This place is well and truly haunted.”

“I am well aware of the spirits here.”

“Okay, good. They’re generally harmless but one of them-”

“Shitty, uh, I am all too familiar with ghosts.” Eric was always nervous when he told people he was clairvoyant. There was always a different reaction and most of them were not positive. “I’m clairvoyant.”

“Clairvoyant?” Shitty raised an eyebrow. “Like being able to tell the future?”

“Kind of. I am able to see and communicate with ghosts.”

“Cool brah!” Shitty exclaimed. “So you’ll be able to actually talk to those bastards?”

“And hopefully, send them on their way.” Eric grinned. Shitty clasped his hands together, and between them they joked about how amazing the hotel will be when guests aren’t being pushed down a flight of stairs.

~*~

Upon arriving in his new room, Eric dropped his bags to the ground beside his bed and took a seat on it. He’d climbed at least four flights of stairs after finding out that this place does not have an elevator. So far, he already had a job list and he’d only just bought the place.

  1. Help the poor souls move on so he can start having guests and earning money.
  2. Install an elevator



The previous owner had left the room bare except for a tallboy, a bed and a single bedside table. With that, Eric began unpacking what he’d brought with him in his car while the removalists unloaded his and Lardo’s things from the truck.

He placed some of his clothes in the tall boy and then he put the rest in the  built in wardrobe. He stuck his Beyoncé poster above his bed and placed a single photo frame of he and his mother on his bedside table.

“Eric?” Lardo asked, peeking in the door. “The removalists are gone. They took one look at all the stairs and bolted.”

“Ugh, seriously?”

“Wanna get started? Or perhaps we could persuade the ghosts to help.”

Eric laughed. That was something that had come up often when he scrolled through the hotels page on ghosts.com. They liked to move the furniture around, move guests things. Unless it was glued down it was likely to be moved.

“Very funny, Lardo.” Eric shook his head. “An elevator is definitely a priority.”

Between them both, and with a hand from Shitty and Gloria, they managed to drag their things upstairs and into their rooms.

~*~

Eric was well aware of the concept of ghost hunters. Aware of their tacky equipment, false knowledge and their enthusiasm. What he wasn’t aware of was the amount of ghost hunters that filtered through the hotel. He shouldn’t be surprised.

“What’s your most haunted room?” A man asked, dropping three of his five bags to the floor. He thrusted his hand over the desk towards Eric, grinning. “Ghost Hunters inc.”

“Well, Ghost Hunters inc.” Eric took the mans hand and instantly regretted it. His hand was incredibly clammy. _Nervous._ Eric thought. “I’m the new owner and that is a question I cannot answer but the whole hotel is haunted apparently.”

“Apparently?” The man raised an eyebrow. “Do you not believe all the eyewitness accounts? They say that this hotel is not a place you want to stay at unless you want to come out of it changed.”

“I cannot say that I do. Once I see for myself then my mind will change. Now, how many beds do you need?”

“Three singles?”

“Too easy.” Eric turned, removed the keys from hook 18 and handed them to the man. “How many nights?”

“Three.” Eric gave the man a price, which he paid, and then he grabbed all his bags and headed for the stairs.

First day, first guess. So far, things were going well.

If only things were to stay that way.

 

~*~

It was three am when Eric heard the first bang.

It was loud enough to jolt him out of bed in a panic. He sat up and glanced around the room, squinting and blinking through the dark. His eyes were yet to adjust, but he could hear footsteps within his room. Someone was there.

“Who’s there?” He asked through the darkness. In all his years communicating with spirits, he’d found that this would either a) drive the spirit away or b) surprise them because for as long as they have been stuck it was unlikely they’d ever met a clairvoyant. Eric was able to pierce through the thin vale that separated the two worlds. There was a disjointed mumble, indicating that the spirit was in the room. As his eyes began to adjust, he began to see a figure by the door. It was tall and broad shouldered, unmoving in the dark. “Hello?”

The figures head snapped up and stared at Eric. It was always slightly unnerving when a spirit looked directly at Eric, and it was always at this point that Eric’s empathetic side would always kick in. Waves of emotions flowed towards him in waves, pain, fear, panic. All of them swelled within Eric, threatening to burst him. This spirit was in a lot of pain.

“Who are you?” Eric questioned in a firmer tone. The figure continued to stare at him and then he simply disappeared before he could say another word.

Figures, spirits were never one for a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol I am so sorry for not updating sooner. University is HECTIC man like wtf. Anyway, I'm on a mid-semester break so here's another chapter. Hope you all like it and comments and kudos are really appreciated, they spur me to write :)


	3. In terms of damage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric comes across a trashed room and an angry ghost and takes one step further in unraveling the story behind these ghosts.

_1 Week later_

 

The man hadn’t returned and Eric was beginning to think that he was the only one. One ghost, that was easy to deal with. One haunting, one story to unravel, one ghost to set on his way.

Except, life is never that easy for Eric.

“Eric,” Gloria said, approaching Eric at  the desk. “We uh, have a problem.”

“What could that be?” Eric sighed.

“Well, come see for yourself.”

 

~*~

Gloria opened the door to guest room 18 and the first thing that hit Eric was the overwhelming feeling of anger, not his own. It seeped into his consciousness like tea seeps into hot water. He breathed through the anger, reminding himself that it was not his own anger, but another’s.

As a kid, before he realised that he was an empath, his emotions were always all over the place. His mother sent him to a therapist to get them under control, and when he spoke of all the emotions he felt, he was put on all different kinds of medication.

When they failed to work, and a particularly depressed ghost began filling Eric’s own mind with depression his mother sought alternate treatment, a clairvoyant, much like himself. She explained things to him, and for years she taught him all that he knows today.

The room was a physical manifestation of the spirits anger.  The mattress was thrown from the bedframe, there was stuffing ripped from pillows, sheets were torn and a mirror was smashed. Eric shook his head and entered the room and tried his hardest to push through the anger and try and feel something else. That was the key to this whole ‘moving on’ thing. Push past all the surface emotions and find the one emotion at the bottom of it all. That’s what really helped Eric send ghosts on their way, that tiny, little glimmer of feeling. And there it was, the sense of heartbreak.

“Oh my,” Eric sighed. “What a mess.”

“Need me to clean things up?” Gloria asked, shuffling into the room beside Eric.

“No, no. I want to leave this here. Might make it easier to have a little chat.” He turned to Gloria, smiling and advised her to leave. He mulled around the room, lightly kicking overturned objects, picking at fluff on the ground. It was a mess, a big mess and to be honest he wondered how he didn’t hear it. “You’ve made a big mess.”

Sometimes, ghosts appeared to him. Other times, he pulled them in, tugging on that invisible, clairvoyant string. He closed his eyes and searched through the darkness, looking for that string.

He found it, and pulled.

When he looked up, there was a tall man standing there. His eyes were wide.

“Hello?.” Eric said with surprise. This was not the man he had seen in his bedroom that night. So there was more than one ghost in this hotel. The man looked around, his eyes finding each and every piece of furniture that had been destroyed, and he seemed surprised to be so corporal despite the lack of emotions.

“Who are you?” he questioned, stepping away from Eric.

“Eric Bittle, new owner of this hotel.” He said simply. “I am also a clairvoyant so I’m not going to scare.”

 “I kinda figured…” He said. “Been in and out for a bit, but I’ve caught parts of conversation. I’m Ransom.”

“Well, Ransom, you have some explaining to do.”

“First of all, my anniversary was last week and my best friend hasn’t come to visit.” The ghost sat down on the edge of an upturned chair. “I got a little angry.”

“Yeah, and you took it out on my furniture!”

“I’m sorry.” He muttered.

Eric sighed. “Don’t be.” He picked some fluff from a ripped pillow and when he looked up again, Ransom was gone.

 

~*~

Eric sat across from Shitty, who was shirtless, and working on the bills.

“So, uh, how many ghosts are actually in the hotel?” Eric asked after a while.

“Three, as far as I know.” Three ghosts. Not a huge amount, but by no means a small number either. At least he had some information on one ghost, Ransom. He had a death date, and at least from there he could figure out how he died by going through newspaper articles.

“One of them is named Ransom.”

“Wow! How’d you find that out?” Shitty said, looking up from his paperwork.

“I’m clairvoyant.”

“Oh, right.”

“Now that means I can get to working on who he is, how he died and how to send him on.”

“You are a legend, Eric.” Shitty began tapping on the keyboard. “Any last names?”

“Nope.”

“Well, that is going to make it a lot harder.”

 And just like that, the little hope Eric had found had crumbled in his hands.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there!   
> Long time no update, eh?  
> Sorry about that. I have been super busy and stressed lately with university and getting a new job. But I will try my best at uploading regularly (as long as you leave comments and give kudos!).   
> Don't forget to subscribe so you can get a notification for when I update.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that was the first chapter of haunting. I promise future chapters will be longer than this. I was mostly just trying to piece together more of a prologue. Anyway, there should be an update very soon but I can't guarantee anything because University is insane like my gosh.


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